


take all they can get until you're dirt and bones

by staubfingers



Category: Dexter (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Debra-centric, Dexter Rewrite, Drug Use, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Hurt/Comfort, Murder, Pseudo-Incest, Quinn is a Good Friend, Rape/Non-con Elements, Smut, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:55:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22757374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staubfingers/pseuds/staubfingers
Summary: She's drunk and high, and muses if there ever was another cop who fell in love with two serial killers. She laughs humorously and drowns what's left in the bottle.
Relationships: Debra Morgan & Joey Quinn, Debra Morgan/Dexter Morgan
Comments: 7
Kudos: 35





	take all they can get until you're dirt and bones

**Author's Note:**

> I know I'm like seven years too late, but I started rewatching the first season and realized how much these last two still _hurt_. It's the first and only show I was really invested in and the ending was such a major let-down, so yeah, here is my Debster-rewrite that we all deserved (or at least the one I wanted to have).  
> The story goes AU after season four, but I literally just eliminated all the plot-points I didn't like (e.g. and mainly Hannah), rearranged some things, and put other stuff in (e.g. and mainly Debster). So maybe someone is still not over the finale and wants to read 13k of this, if you do, have fun.  
> And beware, I only learned English in school, so this is probably full of mistakes.  
> (The title is from _Vultures by Nicole Aktins_ , which was one of the season eight trailer songs, and omg was this trailer great.)

_Looking back it all seems inevitable, like their story was written down the moment Harry decided to bring Dexter home with him. Of course, the extent of the pain this choice would bring upon his family Harry could not have foreseen, nor that it was his daughter and not his adopted son who would take the fall. She will probably ask herself until the end of her days what made Harry look at those two boys sitting in their mother's blood for days and deciding he wanted to save one and leave the other behind._

_Maybe nothing of this would have happened if Harry took both of them in, or if he'd walked right out of this container, forgetting what he just saw._

_Looking back, every option seems to be more sensible than taking one of the boys and raise him to be a serial killer._

-

Debra is thirteen years old, her mother just died and she's left alone with a father who sometimes seems to forget she even exist, and a brother who was once her best friend. Once, because she sometimes feels like she doesn't even know him any more.

Some days the two of them disappear and she desperately wants to be part of whatever it is that they're doing during those hours, but they won't let her. One night she stood in front of Dexter and cried, said, "Take me with you." The next morning he was gone without a word and it might have been the worst betrayal yet. 

She decides that she doesn't need him then, gets friends with the older, cooler people whom she drinks cheap beer with after school and smokes cigarettes that make her throat burn and her eyes watery. Her father doesn't even realize that she withdraws from them with him working all day and spending the little time he's got off with his _son._ Dexter looks at her differently, though, but doesn't talk to their father about it, which is strange.

Naturally, he tells him the one thing he shouldn't, that Debra stole one of the guns to practice. Her father is angry and grounds her and she hates Dexter _so much_ in this moment that it hurts.

She still steals off to meet with her friends, though, and one night when she comes back, slightly drunk, Dexter is sitting in her room, waiting. “I think you should stop this, Deb,” he says, puzzled like he doesn't know whether he means what he's saying or not.

“Why? You gonna tell dad?” she kicks her shoes off.

“No,” he says after seemingly thinking about it, “I just don't like seeing you this way. These guys are not good for you.”

“Like you'd care,” she huffs.

He studies her face, it makes her uncomfortable. “I don't want anything bad happening to you,” it sounds confused, “and spending time with these kinds of people will hurt you someday. And I don't want that. Dad doesn't want it either.”

It hurts, hearing her brother talk to her like he gives a shit, like he didn't ignore her for the last few months. She sits down next to him on her bed. “It feels like you don't care about what happens to me.”

Hesitantly he puts his arm around her shoulders, she doesn't remember him touching her willingly ever before. “Of course I care, you're my sister.”

-

Her life gets really fucked up when she's barely sixteen. She has always been different, not as much as Dexter, sure, but she never felt quiet _normal,_ either, but then she sees her brother naked and everything changes.

It's an accident, she came home early and Dexter obviously did, too, because he shouldn't be there. He is, however, standing in the bathroom when she opens the door, he's just out of the shower, air still humid, and he's got nothing on, not even a towel. She didn't realize how muscular he's become. He's only two years older and while she still looks like a girl in some parts he's a _man_ , all tall and strong. 

There's hair everywhere, light as the one on his head, and it's even around his dick. She's never seen a naked man in front of her, so she just _stares_ at Dexter's cock. It looks strange, long and slightly bent. She wants to go over and touch it, see if it's soft or feels more like a finger. If he'd like it when she touches him.

“Deb? Would you mind waiting outside until I'm done in here?” he asks calmly, apparently not minding that he stands naked in front of his sister.

Immediately she turns red and runs to her room, the picture of Dexter's cock still on her mind.

For the next few days Dexter acts like nothing has happened, and maybe he really thinks nothing did happen, but she just can't stop thinking about his body. Distressingly she gets wet every time she pictures what it would have been like if she had gone over and just taken his dick into her hand. He would probably hate her if he knew what she's thinking about, certainly not more than she already hates herself, though.

She wishes she had someone she could talk to, but whom could you possibly tell you want to do things with her brother no siblings should ever do? In the end she decides to ignore these thoughts, labels them as some fucked up thing a horny mind sometimes does.

Three weeks later she looses her virginity to a boy a few years older then her (and tries not to think about her brother while he fucks her).

-

Dexter leaves for college and she is glad. Ever since _that_ afternoon she tried to get out of his way and he never even bet an eye over her strange behaviour. It hurts, because after all she still misses him being her friend.

It's not three months later when dad brings him back and Dexter says he will drive everyday to campus from now on. He never liked being around people so she's not really surprised and only shrugs, secretly happy to having him back with her.

-

Dad is dying and it hurts like hell. He's been sick for a long time, but they thought he would make it, that he'll be better soon. Then he passes out one day and the doctors tell them he's got not much time left. It's like mum all over again, only that it hurts so much more for that she will be a fucking _orphan_ when her father is gone. 

Dexter tries to be there, to help her with her pain, says hollow, meaningless things like “he will be better”, or, “we'll get through this”, and she appreciates it.

She is alone in the hospital room with her sleeping father, holding his hand and is praying for him to be alright after all (and she doesn't even believe in God or whatever, but if someone is up their, why would He take her mother and then a few years later her father?), when he wakes up. He looks endlessly tired and she strokes his hair lightly.

“You need anything? Shall I call the nurse?” she asks, concentrating on not starting to cry.

“I'm sorry, Deb.” His voice is nearly inaudible and she feels a tear escape after all.

“Don't be,” she says and strengthens the grip on his hand.

He closes his eyes again, but keeps on talking, slowly and quietly, “I shouldn't have done it. I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have put you through this. I wish I wouldn't leave you alone with it.”

Confused she shakes her head. “You're not going anywhere, dad.”

“Should've told you when I still had the time, shown you what I did.”

“Dad, I really don't know what you're talking about.” The tears are now falling constantly and she feels _scared._

He doesn't answer, just falls back to sleep. It's the last time she talks to him, two days later he's dead and Dexter sits helplessly next to her while she cries and screams.

-

She trains to be a cop and hopes her dad would have been proud of her. Dexter says he certainly would, but it feels more like a thing he says because he knows she wants to hear it. It still feels good, though.

After she finished training and got her badge handed over in a ceremony, they get steaks and drinks in a nice restaurant. He refused at first, but then she convinces him to do shots by saying it's his brotherly obligation to get drunk with her on this important day. She has no clue why this does the trick, but Dexter is soon enough slumped in the seat beside her.

“Lets go dancing,” she says laughingly.

“Absolutely not,” Dexter slurs. She realizes she's never seen him drunk before. Maybe it _is_ his first time. It's absolutely hilarious.

“Come _on_ ,” she fake-whines and bumps her fist playfully against his arm.

In the end they just walk home and maybe it's even better than dancing because the night is clear and warm, and it's already so late that the streets are strangely quiet. They don't talk much with Dexter still seemingly overwhelmed with his drunkenness, but being next to him feels comfortable and the realization that she's finally with the police sinks in.

“I did it, Dex, I'm a cop,” she laughs, “Watch out, soon we'll work together in homicide.”

He smiles lightly, “And they'll be lucky to have you.”

It's strange to hear him say stuff like this, but she tries not to interpret too much into this. Smiling right back she tries to imagine it; the Morgan-siblings fighting crime together. She wishes their dad was still with them.

Dexter walks her to her apartment door and when he says goodnight she forces him into a hug he returns after a few seconds.

This night she falls asleep with a smile on her face.

-

She really thought she was a good cop, but then came Rudy and everything turned to shit. He made her feel great and loveable, and she wanted nothing more than this to work out. And then he proposed and in that moment she knew she will never be this happy again. And that is what hurts the most, not the betrayal, not the shame, but the certainty that she had the best moments of her life with a guy who dismembered women for fun and wanted to do the same things to her.

In order to fall asleep she has to take pills because whenever she closes her eyes she is back in that trunk, the rotting body of a man right next to her, and the fear of dying makes it hard to breath. A week _after_ she is still sleeping at Dexter's, and she thought she was better when she wakes up one night, sheets sweat soaked and him sitting helplessly next to her.

“I heard you scream, so I woke you up,” he explains.

“Sorry,” she mumbles ashamed. She hates being like this, too stupid to realize she's fucking a serial killer and then too weak to live with the consequences.

“It's alright. Maybe you want to take a shower?”

She merely nods and when she comes back, still feeling like shit, but at least no more smelling like it, he changed the sheets and stands in the middle of the room, seemingly not knowing what to do with himself.

“Stay?” she asks and surprisingly he nods and lies down awkwardly on the left side of the bed. Suddenly feeling self-aware she's glad she brought a change with her into the bathroom and is now not standing only dressed in a towel in front of him.

She turns off the lights and crawls under the sheets next to him. His breathing is slow and strangely comforting. She rolls onto her side, facing him, and after hesitating a few seconds she puts her hand onto his chest. His heart beats steadily against his ribs. Taking a deep breath she closes her eyes

“I'm sorry this happened to you, Deb,” he whispers.

She doesn't know what to say, so tries to go back to sleep.

-

Dexter gets married and she's happy for him, she really is, the weird feeling in her chest is just there because hearing the word “engagement” awakes bad memories. Besides, getting married is the right thing to do when a baby is on the way. (Sweet fuck, in a few month she'll be an aunt.) So of course she is glad her brother is happy, she is just surprised since he always has been this socially-awkward guy, not doing long-term relationships, whom she could always relay on. And him being a father and married won't change this, he will still be there for her, won't he?

She's aware of how horribly selfish she is, but she just can't stop thinking about how she'll lose him like she lost everyone she ever had been close to. It hurts and she wants to talk to him about it, but he wouldn't understand it. How could he when she isn't even understanding it herself?

So his wedding day comes and she has to think about sixteen-years-old Deb who fantasized about her brother and his dick at night and feels sick. She drowns that (and the the little voice saying “in love” all over again) in champagne.

-

Lundy dies and Rita dies, and it feels like her world is destroyed all over again. Every morning she wakes up either hoping that this is a bad dream or that she died with Frank on that parking lot. She gets disappointed every time.

Dexter sells the house and moves back into his apartment, back in with her. They both work part-time so one is always at home with Harrison, the whole department being very understanding, even LaGuerta, and Debra hates their pitiful looks.

“ _How can so many bad things happen to one family?”_ they say. If she only knew.

So they play house and are an ironic decal of the perfect family. Harrison is confused and cries nearly through every night, but it doesn't matter since she can't sleep either, so she just holds him until their exhaustions makes them both fall asleep after all.

The apartment next door is suddenly up for sale and Dexter buys it with part of the money he got from the house, and the rest is put into savings for Astor and Cody. She feels horrible for these two, having both parents killed, and is still glad that they don't live with them since they are hardly able to take care of Harrison as it is. Then Dexter hires a nanny and there is no reason for Debra to stay.

“You can live in the other apartment,” he says when she tells him so, but she just shakes her head, knowing living three months with his sister is more than enough for him.

She still feels like shit most of the time, but the pain isn't as raw any more, and she can't stand waking up to Dexter being in the other room every morning when she was jealous that he married another woman not two years ago. A woman who was brutally murdered.

“You can move in with me, my girlfriend just left me and it's hard to pay the rent alone. I have a spare room,” Quinn suggest when she tells him she's looking for a new flat.

She's aware that is a bad idea to move in with yet another man, but she doesn't plan on sleeping with him ever, so she accepts the offer. With horror she realizes that all her stuff can be packed into four boxes and two suitcases. She really has to get a life on her own.

-

The nanny is religious and brings Dexter together with some priest. Debra isn't a fan, neither of religion nor of the guy who seems to have some shit going on, but he helps Dexter with whatever feelings he has after Rita died, so she's okay with it. And Dexter changed, of course he did, who wouldn't, but he seems to be angry all the day and it scares her. He has always been calm and rational and now he shouts when someone does the slightest mistake and grits his teeth whenever she tries to talk with him about something he doesn't want to.

“You have to get your shit together, Dex. I know it's hard, but you're turning into a fucking douchebag, not really the role-model Harrison should have,” she tells him one evening when she's visiting him at home.

“I know, I really do. It's just... a lot.”

“Maybe you need an outlet,” she suggests.

He laughs humorously and shakes his head, “Believe me, I tried.”

“I taught this priest helped you?”

“He does, it's just... I can't even explain it, ever since Rita died I feel like something inside of me _snapped_.”

And he looks devastated and that is even worse than seeing him angry. She gets a few steps closer until she is standing next to him and places her hand on his shoulder. “You can talk to me, you know that right? I will always be there for you, no matter what.”

“I know, Deb.” But it doesn't sound convinced.

-

“Maybe you should talk to someone,” Quinn says one morning, “I heard you pacing up and down your room all night.”

“Oh fuck you,” she says, gulps down her coffee and leaves for work without him.

He is probably right, though. She doesn't sleep too much (but she didn't ever since _Rudy_ ) and feels like shit all the time. Well, this isn't new either, but still.

Of course, she would never go to a shrink voluntarily, but then she's involved in a shooting and protocol says she has to go and see one. At first she hates it, but then she starts to talk about Rudy, and Lundy, and Rita, and her father, and it's horribl, but somehow it helps. The woman listens through all of this and sometimes makes a comment, and it feels more like a confession than therapy.

Deb's there for the fifth or sixth time when she talks about Dexter, and she only ever mentioned him before when she had to because she didn't want to _go there,_ but now she's telling all these bits and pieces and the shrinks says, “He seems to be your rock, the most important person in your life.”

And she nods, because of course he is, and the woman looks so kind and trustworthy and Debra just _has_ to talk with someone about this. “When I was sixteen I saw him naked and I... started to think about him in an improper way. I tried to forget about it, but... but I never really did, I think.”

A flash of surprise is seen on the shrink's face, before it goes back to her normal expressionless mask. “And you want these thoughts to stop?”

Confused she shakes her head, “ _Of course_ , I want them to stop. This is not... you shouldn't think this way about your _brother_ , for fucks sake. I don't know what's wrong with me.”

“Well, you're both adults, the only real reason siblings shouldn't be in a relationship with each other is that their children would presumably have genetic defects. You and Dexter are not related.”

“What are you trying to tell me here?” Of all the things she expected, this isn't one of them.

“That you should think about these feelings without the terms of right and wrong. It's uncommon, yes, but not unheard of, so you should ask yourself why you have those feelings.”

“I thought you could tell me,” Debra says, starting to get pissed.

“I mean, why do you like him? What attracts you when you look at him? And maybe you should consider talking with him about it.”

“Talking with him-? You can't be serious. He's my brother, fuck!”

“I'm just trying to help you,” she tries to talk her down, but Debra already got up and turns to leave. 

-

In the end she goes back to the shrink three weeks later when she just can't stop thinking about what she told her. She always tried to repress those feelings and now someone tells her it doesn't make her crazy, that it's not as bad as she always thought it was. Of course, she still feels ashamed when she thinks about it, but ever since this started she really _let's_ herself think about it for the first time, and it doesn't feel as horribly wrong as it did when she first realized something was off with the way she saw her brother when she was sixteen years old.

“It's not really the attraction I think,” Debra says, not able to look the woman sitting in front of her in the eyes, “but that he has always been there for me, we went through so much shit together and I could always rely on him. I just... want to be near him. And yeah, I find him weirdly attractive, and it's fucked up, but mainly I want to be with him.”

“Do you want to tell him all this?”

“Yes, I think so.”

-

The priest gets killed, and Trinity's wife and daughter get murdered, presumably by him, and Dexter disappears. She is scared shitless of what he is going to do, his phone turned off and not even the nanny knowing where he went. So she stays at his apartment, takes care of Harrison and tries to not go crazy. Quinn calls every few hours, asks if Dexter reached out or if he can do anything. The answer is always no.

Then, two days later Dexter texts her, saying he will be back in a few hours, but still not answering her calls. When he finally come back it's late in the evening, Harrison just fell asleep, and she's angrier than in a long time.

“Where _the fuck_ have you been?” she asks, voice shaking with rage.

“I'm sorry, Deb,” he says, looking absolutely defeated, shoulders slumped.

“You're sorry? You fucking disappeared for two days straight! You have a son, you can't just-”

“I left him with Sonja,” he objects.

“Oh fuck you, don't you think the boy went through enough? That he might need his father?”

“I know I should have talked to you, everything was just so- With Brother Sam dead and... Trinity killing his family. It was like one year ago, when...” he trials off.

“And what about me?” she shouts and to her horror realizes that she started to cry, “I thought you left me, that you wouldn't come back.”

“Of course, I came back,” he says and takes a few steps towards her.

“How was I supposed to know that?” Fuck, it sounds like she's sobbing. She probably is.

“I'm sorry, Deb, I'm really sorry. I lost myself, but everything will be normal again, I promise you.”

And then she slumps against him, embraces him like her life depends on it. He hugs her right back and whispers soothing nonsense into her ear.

-

Dexter really changes after this, goes back to his old self, like he left the anger behind where-ever he went on that weekend. She is glad, but still scared he'll leave her again and doesn't come back this time. She still wants to talk with him about her _realization_ , just can't come up with a way to bring it up.

“You seem to be better,” Quinn comments and she smiles, because yes, she feels better. There is hardly any night she sleeps through and she isn't going to the therapist any more, but she doesn't want to shoot herself at least ten times a day, so yeah, progress.

They are called to a crime scene in a nice beach house, and she just loves and rents it for a small amount of money, because no one wants to live in a murder-house. (She has enough ghosts on her own, so a few more will hardly matter.)

As soon as she's moved in she throws a party, everyone shows up, even LaGuerta who congratulates her on finally living own her own, and Debra feel so good and liberated that she doesn't even care. Quinn seems to be kind of sad to lose her as a flatmate, and she laughs and hugs him, and tells him to come over whenever he wants to.

It's the first time in years she lives on her own in her own place, and standing in _her_ kitchen, drinking a beer, she is sure everything will finally be alright.

-

They call it the “Barrel-Girls-Case” and no case before messed with her like this one. The women were raped, tortured and brutally murdered, nothing she hasn't seen a dozen times, but when they finally get a lead on who did this, the men just disappear. At first it seems like they just ran as soon as they realized they were suspects, but evidence points on someone _making_ them vanish.

And whoever it is, she doesn't want to find them. She knows it's wrong, that a killer is a killer, and then she reads one of the autopsy-reports again and gets overwhelmed with the feeling that death is the nicest thing those _creatures_ deserve. (She remembers Doaks, fucking _Bay-Harbor-Butcher,_ and gets sick with the hypocrisy of it all.)

She just hopes the guy, woman, whoever it is, kills them all before they catch either of them.

-

It's Friday evening and she invited Dexter over for steaks and beer. She didn't plan on _talking_ to him, but it's a nice evening, she's really drunk, and can't stop starring at his stupidly handsome face and if she doesn't do it now she probably never will. So she takes a deep breath when they sit outside on her fucking _patio_ and says, “I'll hate myself for this tomorrow, but I have to tell you something.”

He looks confused and turns slightly more towards her, “What is it?”

“I went to therapy, okay, no, this sounds wrong. I had to go there, but whatever, she made me realize something, not really realize, you know, I just kinda accepted it. Oh, fuck.”

“Deb, you are scaring me,” he laughs nervously. _Nervously_ , like he's the one who should be nervous.

“I love you, Dex.”

He hesitates for a few moments, then says, “I love you, too.”

“No,” she shakes her head, she knew it wouldn't be easy, but not that it'd be that hard, “I love _more._ Like I shouldn't love you.”

He still looks confused, but raises an eyebrow like it beings to dawn on him what exactly she's trying to say.

“You remember the day I accidentally ran into the bathroom and you were there all naked and shit,” he nods slowly and she laughs humorously, “Fuck, I couldn't stop starring at you, and I know it's fucked up, even for me, but I couldn't stop thinking about it and I just wanted... I _wanted._ ”

He nods again, slowly this time, probably trying to process, “Deb...”

“I know, I know, it's totally crazy, but you're the best thing in my life, always have been, and don't worry, I don't expect anything to change, I just wanted you to know.”

“I really don't know what to say right now.” He looks confused, like he's not able to really process what he just heard, and that's alright, he's still here and not screaming.

“You don't have to say anything, I just wanted you to know, I _had_ to tell you.”

He nods, again, and takes another sip of his beer. After fifteen minutes of strained silence he calls a cab and hugs her awkwardly goodbye, before he's leaving her alone in her big empty house.

She cries herself to sleep that night.

-

Three days later (she still hasn't talked with Dexter about _the other night_ again) they get another lead on the Barrel-Girls-Case and she's out alone to question everyone who might have seen anything. It's by chance, really, that she ends up in this goddamn house in the middle of the forest. She doesn't expect to find even the smallest evidence there, but then she sees an expensive car parked behind the house and draws her gun.

In one of the back rooms she finds it. The entrance is covered with plastic-sheets and behind this she sees the silhouette of a men, bent over a table. It's _him_ and she caught him in the act. She points her gun at him, “Police, don't move or I shoot you!”

She feels sick, wants to run away. No one knows she's here, she could just drive back to the station, write in her report she found nothing, was never here. Only one of these pigs is still left alive and he's probably lying behind this sheet, maybe even already dead, she is too late no matter what. But turning around now would mean she lets a killer go.

Heart racing she pulls the sheet aside.

For the rest of her life she wishes she just went home.

-

The rest of the day is a blur, she doesn't even remember what it was that she thought when she saw her brother, dear darling Dexter, behind this sheet, blood all over himself. He didn't even have to try to tell her that it was not what it looked like, she did that herself. Dexter snapped after what happened to Rita, he said so himself, this was just a sick accident.

He talked her down, and at some point took the gun from her. Then he told her they couldn't leave Jordan Chase behind, _fucking Jordan Chase,_ so she helped him to wrap the dead body in plastic and drive it to Dexter's boat. He tried to send her home, but she refused and then he took the boat to the middle of the ocean and dumped the body. After he had followed her to her house he wanted to come in to _talk_ , but she sent him away. Surprisingly he complied without any resistance.

It's already way past midnight when she's finally at home, and sitting alone in her living room her mind starts racing. How did he know what to to? Where did he find Chase? What about the other guys, was that him, too? How could she not see something was wrong with her brother? Why did he do it? Why? Why _Why_?

She gulps as much vodka down as she can without throwing up and falls into a dreamless sleep.

The next morning she calls in sick, waits until she is sure Dexter left for work and brought Harrison to daycare. She calls the nanny and asks her whether she could pick up Harrison and keep him over-night at hers, and then drives to Dexter apartment.

She hopes she doesn't find anything, prays even, and then a few hours later she sits in front of a variety of knifes, saws, plastic sheets, gloves, duct tape, a bag full of cash with fake IDs for Dexter, Harrison and herself, and, worst of all, a box with over twenty samples of blood.

Then, when she's certain she found everything, she throws up, only bile for she didn't eat in twenty-four hours, and falls down sobbing next to the toilet.

She is nearly certain Dexter ran away, even though he left the cash and passports behind, and when he gets home after all she feels weirdly calm.

“Are you a serial killer?”

“Yes.”

-

She's drunk and high, and muses if there ever was another cop who feel in love with two serial killers. She laughs humorously and drowns what's left in the bottle.

-

After Harrison is sent away earlier than originally planed to spend the summer with his siblings and sort-of-grandparents she forces Dexter to move in with her. “I swear, I'll arrest you up,” she says all over again and isn't sure if she'll ever be able to. “You'll go down with me,” his eyes seem to say, but how could this be any worse than what she's going through at the moment.

“He... Rudy, did he come after me, because of you?” she asks one week into the _therapy._

“Yes,” he says after a few moments of gritting his teeth.

“Why?”

“Deb, you don't want to-”

“Why?”

“He wanted us to be together, me and him. He planed all of this to... _play a game_ with me. You were the last piece, he wanted me to kill you as an act of leaving my old life behind.”

She feels bile rising in her throat. She swallows it down with her beer. “Why didn't you kill me?”

“I would never-”

“Oh, bullshit, you killed so many people, why not kill me? You would have been free, wouldn't you? You could have made it look like the fucking Ice-Truck-Killer murdered me and then ride into the sunset _with Rudy_ , on one would even have bet an eye.”

“I didn't want to loose you. I wanted to go with him, but not like that. I tried to reason with him, and he still refused to let you live.”

“And then he just...” she shakes her head, blaming it on being drunk or high for nearly all of the past week that she didn't realize it sooner, “He didn't kill himself.”

“No, he didn't.”

“I wish you did kill me.”

-

She wakes up to an unpleasant feeling in her throat. Before she can fully realize what is going on her body starts to shake and tremble, and she involuntarily throws up. When she can finally breath again she opens her eyes, confused, and finds herself slumped over her toilet, Dexter kneeling next to her.

“What?” she mumbles.

“How many of those pills did you take?” he's shaking with anger, and for a moment she is scared.

“Dunno.” Everything is slightly dizzy and she tries two times to get up unsuccessfully, before Dexter helps her. She staggers to the sink, rinses with mouth wash and then drinks some water.

“This has to stop right now.” She doesn't remember ever seeing him that upset, not even when she found him in that fucking house, bend over Jordan Chase's live-less body.

“Oh fuck you,” she retorts and just wants to leave the bathroom when he takes hold of her arm so firmly it probably will be bruised by tomorrow morning.

“Fuck, what-” she protest, but he ignores her.

“You want to play therapy? Fine, whatever, but I won't just sit here and watch you kill yourself.”

“I'm not,” she tries to shake him of, but he only grips her other arm and she feels fully immobilized. Maybe if she had been sober she would have put up a fight, but like this she is helplessly inferior.

“I can't lose you, I don't know what I'll do.” The _I don't know how many people I'll kill_ hangs unsaid between them. And if this isn't the best fucking thing he could have said to send her down the guilty-lane.

“Let me go,” she says weakly and shakes her head. Surprisingly he complies and she goes back to lie on the couch she probably was sleeping on, before he forced her awake. He follows and sits down on the floor so that their face are only inches apart.

“I want to help you, Deb,” he says.

“Then go back in time and kill yourself before you ever get the chance to destroy my life.”

-

She starts to drink less, even stays completely sober for a few days, and tries to tell herself she is just doing in order to not get fired, and not because her fucking serial killer of a brother asked her to. Quinn realizes something is off, but whenever he tries to talk to her she ignores him. Everyone else seemed to be oblivious to the shit-show that is happening at the Morgan's, but hey, they didn't realize that they were working with a serial killer for years, so what was she expecting.

Dexter seems to be more laid back as the days go by and she starts to hope he might be _changing._ Of course deep down she knows it's not that easy and when she wakes up one night and finds him gone she isn't even really surprised.

Her phone-calls are ignored and she already sees him chopping someone up when he suddenly walks through the front door no fifteen minutes after she woke up. “Where have you been?” she asks and looks for any sign of blood on him, even though she knows she won't find it anyway.

“Just checking something out,” he says slowly, carefully.

“Your next victim?” And she doesn't want to know. She _has to_ know.

“No, I just had a feeling I looked into. I'll show you tomorrow at work what I found and then you can get into, officially.”

Slightly trembling she shakes her head. “You can't just go away in the middle of the night.”

He takes a few steps closer to her and she lets him. “I'm doing everything you want, Deb, I just went to check something out.”

“I can't believe you,” and its barely more than a whisper. And all those feelings she tried to repress are coming back with full force and she finally says, “I told you I love you and you let me. You are a fucking serial killer and didn't do anything about it, when I told you I _was in love with you_.”

“I'm sorry.”

“No, you're not, you're just sorry I caught you.” He doesn't say anything and it's all the confirmation she needs. She laughs, and it may sound hysterically. “And it doesn't change anything, I still love you. What does that make me?”

He seems to look for an answer, but doesn't find one.

“I'll go back to bed,” she says after a few seconds and leaves him standing there.

-

Of course, he kills again. She isn't really surprised, but it hurts nonetheless. He even shows her the crematory he burned the body in, tells her why he _had to do it._ It makes her sick, and she understand him, and that makes her even more sick. He drives them home after, not saying anything else. Still not sure whether she wants to drown the memory in pills or in alcohol she enters her house and before she can do anything about it, he takes her hand and leads her to the bedroom.

After entering he pushes her down onto the bed he slept in for the past few weeks and straddles her hips. She wants to protest, wants to ask what he's doing, but she somehow isn't able to.

It's still a shock when he kisses her, far to sweet and gentle. She kisses right back. After a while he starts to underdress her, undresses himself. He still looks as good as he had nearly fifteen years ago, and she just marvels at the sight until he goes down on her.

Embarrassingly fast she is coming and before she even caught her breath he is sliding into her. It's better than she ever imagined it to be and worse all the same. She still comes a second time, before he finishes inside of her.

They are lying next to each other and she wishes he had done it the night she told him she loved him. Maybe then she would never went into that house, never tore down that plastic sheet.

-

“Harry never wanted this to happen,” he says over breakfast

She snorts, “Who would want to see their children fuck each other.”

“No- yes this probably too, but he didn't want you to find out. He always wanted to protect you, especially from me.”

“Well, he did a fucking-tastic job, didn't he.” And she asks herself for the hundreds of times how her father, who always was some kind of flawless hero to her, could train his son to be an efficient killing-machine.

-

With Harrison being home again Dexter moves back into his apartment. It doesn't really matter, because he killed at least one person while he was living with her, so whatever. At least this way she can stop thinking about what he's doing at night, for that she doesn't have control over it anyway.

Some days she wakes up and tries to tell herself she's going to end it all, one way or another, but after she has brushed her teeth she normally forgets about it. She does her job, catches criminals, only drinks about every third day (and then just in the evenings) and fucks her brother every other day. Usually he comes over, sometimes they meet at his apartment and she plays with Harrison and puts him to bed before she takes her clothes off.

Fucking Dexter still feels as good as the first time, even though he stopped being gentle after he seemingly realized she'd take anything he's giving to her. It doesn't really surprise her that he likes to grip her flesh so hard he leaves bruises nearly every time and fucks her pressed against a wall without much foreplay more often than not.

It's Friday evening and they had beer and steaks at his place. After they finished them she goes wordlessly down onto her knees, opens his trousers and takes his cock into her mouth. He is quiet (he always is, only ever making small huffing noises), and after a few minutes of letting her do what she wants he grips her hair and starts to fuck her mouth. A few tears run down her cheeks when he goes too deep over and over again and she feels the wetness pooling between her legs.

He comes down her throat, picks her up, puts her onto the couch, and yanks her jeans down to push three fingers into her. She moans and arches her back, and he moves them while starting to suck on her clit. She comes two times in the en, d with nearly his whole hand inside of her. And she would never admit it to him, but it's the best fucking sex she ever had.

-

It's weird how you can get accustomed to seemingly everything, Debra muses, since merely six months after she found out her brother is serial killer she feels fine. And she hates herself for it, for letting him fuck her into submission, into averting her eyes from what he's doing at night. She tells herself the people he's killing deserve it, that they are both doing _the right thing_. And it's ridiculously hypocritical, because if it was any other person she would had them arrested without any second thought.

Sometimes she thinks this makes her even worse then him, but then she's playing with Harrison, or lies naked in bed, and Dexter _smiles_ at her, and she doesn't care about how wrong all of this is.

-

One evening he gives her a paper with an address written down on it and a key. “If you ever need to run and I'm... gone, go there.” She nods, stares down onto until she memorized everything, burns the paper and puts the key into her pocket.

-

Dexter hires Batista's sister to be Harrison's new nanny of all people after the other one quit for whatever reason.

“What the fuck, Dex?” Debra asks angrily.

“Jaime is rather nice and great with Harrison,” he argues.

“This is not about her being _nice_. She's Angel's sister! Don't you think you shouldn't hire a cop's sister to stay at your apartment all of the time?!”

“He asked me to help her out and I needed a new nanny, there was no reason to not hire her.”

“Besides you being a fucking serial killer who hides his fucking trophies in his flat,” she hisses.

“It's all about staying unsuspicious, Deb, and refusing to let her work for me would have been anything but. And it's not like I leave knives lying around.”

She is still angry, but starts to see the reasoning behind it.

“You fire her as soon as you can!”

“Aye, aye, oh mighty Debra,” he says grinning.

-

“She knows,” she says after storming into his apartment.

“Who?”

“LaGuerta. She found something. Questioned me about the night Jordan Chase died. Fuck, Dex! What are we supposed to do?” She feels herself starting to shake in panic.

“We wait.”

“We...? We have to go! They will arrest you!”

“Deb,” he says fucking calmly and takes her face between his hands, “If she had any solid evidence, she wouldn't have talked to you. Why warn you and risk me running away? She is stupid, but not _that_ stupid. She wants us to make a mistake.”

“We are the ones who can't risk anything! They'll put you on death row! Fuck,” she starts to shake uncontrollably, thinks about losing Harrison, thinks about how she's ever supposed to live without Dexter.

“This is not going to happen. I didn't leave any evidence, we wait and see what happens and then we'll move somewhere else if she gets other people to dig into this as well.”

She hugs him, afraid she won't be able to any more, and whispers against his neck, “Aren't you scared? Scared of dying?”

“Nothing is going to happen,” he says again.

-

He was right about it being a trap and he still ran into it. She hates him for it, for not listening to her, and she wishes she could go back in time and just make him go to where-the-fuck-ever with her.

“You're a good person!” LaGuerta says, kneeling on the ground, eyes full of panic.

And Debra cries and cries, because this isn't what was supposed to happen. He's killing the bad guys, makes the world a better place, and she isn't a part of this. However, now she is, pointing her gun at her brother who looks defeated.

“Do it, Deb.” He sounds calm, so fucking calm like he wants her to end this, like his death wouldn't destroy her.

She wants to go, just turn around and run, forget about ever being here. But this time she won't be able to tell herself that she _tried_ to stop him, that she's merely accepting it and not helping him with killing people, she will be just as guilty.

LaGuerta pleads with her and she wants to scream, make them both shut up to let her _think._

One of them has to die, she realizes. Either LaGuerta lives and she puts Dexter in prison where he'll be executed, or they kill her, cover up her death and just _go_.

Everything turns silent suddenly, she still sees LaGuerta and Dexter talking, _pleading,_ but she doesn't hear them. It's like everything is clear now, like someone else is in control of her. She stops crying, takes a deep breath and points her gun at LaGuerta.

Before she fires it she sees the terror in LaGuerta's eyes, the realization that she's going to die right here in this shitty container.

-

Unbelievably, they are able to cover up the murder and no one seems to suspect a thing. It's like a sick joke. How can a building full of cops be oblivious to working with their Lieutenant's murderers?

The weird content Debra felt ever since Dexter started to fuck her is gone, she is once again not able to sleep at night, is already drunk early in the afternoon, and screams at Dexter to go away every time he tries to enter her house. She calls in sick for two weeks before quitting her job. It feels like the best decision she took in a long time.

Dexter shows up at her place once again, tells her she needs to go back, that she's acting _suspicious_. She only screams “fuck you” all over again, and when he refuses to leave, and tries to touch her she points her gun at his face.

“You won't shoot me, Deb,” he says and she hates him for the certainty in his voice.

“Don't try me,” she hisses with gritted teeth and he finally leaves.

Quinn is standing in her living room a few days later. It's early in the evening and she's already so drunk she didn't see or hear him come in. He's just suddenly there and she asks, “Want a beer?”

He only nods and returns a few seconds later with two unopened bottles. He places them on the table in front of the couch and sits down next to her. “What happened?” he asks and she starts to cry.

She's probably smelling horrible for that she doesn't remember the last time she showered, but he still puts his arms around her and lets her sob against his shoulder. Running his hands up and down her back he whispers soothing bullshit like “everything is going to be alright” and “I'm there for you” into her ear. She wants to scream that he doesn't know what she did, that he'd leave her if he ever found out, but keeps her mouth shut. 

When all of her tears have dried, he picks her up and takes her into the bathroom. “Okay?” he asks before he starts to undress her. She only nods and doesn't even feel weird when he sits her down into the bathtub and starts to wash her. Somewhere he finds clean clothes to puts her into, changes her bedsheets and makes a few sandwiches with whatever is left in her fridge. She eats all of them, only now feeling how hungry she is, and lies down. “Please stay,” she whispers, hoarsely from all the crying.

He lies down next to her and goes back to rubbing her back. “I know it's hard, that a lot of bad things happened to you, and LaGuerta's death probably brought the memories back, but you can't go on like this.”

 _Why do you even care?_ She wants to ask.

“I know how it feels like when even getting up in the morning is too much, but you're only destroying yourself this way. And I can't lose you, we all can't lose you. And I know you're strong enough to pick yourself back up.”

“I won't come back,” she mumbles and buries her face in his chest, inhaling his familiar smell.

“You don't have to, but you need _something_ to do, you'll go crazy staying in this house all alone.”

Well, this is what she deserves, isn't it?

-

She gets a job with some private detective, who's an old friend of Quinn's and doesn't care that she sometimes shows up high as long as she gets the job done. And she's rather good at it. Well, it's probably because she's literally doing nothing else than this and sleeping for a few restless hours each night. She is far from feeling _good_ , but at least her existences doesn't seem like a obscure pit of endless pain any more.

Dexter still tries to reach out and she keeps on ignoring him. She misses him like hell, which only makes her hate herself more, but looking at him makes her sick for the only thing she's seeing is a serial killer who made her one of his own.

The newest assignment is to find some mob related merchandise and the guy who stole it. Finding the guy is rather easy, the stuff he stole not so much, so she starts to fuck him. She tells herself it's only to gain his trust and to find whoever he's working with, but spending time with him is the only thing that made her feel remotely good in months. Briggs likes to get drunk and high even more then she does and whenever he puts his dick into her she forgets for a few moments that it's her brother's she actually wants.

She stays with him for weeks, getting merely enough information to not get fired, and enjoys just feeling not too much at all for once. Of course, Dexter comes in and ruins everything.

He confronts them at a store and when he follows her to their hotel a few days later, trying to talk her into going home with him, Briggs walks in on them and starts to shout and throw punches. She wants to go between them, talk Briggs down, but before she can really do anything Dexter _snaps._

“What did you do?” she asks in horror and stares down at Briggs body.

“You're mine,” Dexter hisses and presses her against the wall, hand around her neck. For a moment she thinks he's going to kill her, as well, hopes he'll do it, but his grip is only tight enough to hold her in place, not to choke her. She closes her eyes. “Mine,” he says again.

She wants to cry somehow, bring Briggs back to live, go home with her brother and forget about everything that just happened.

Dexter opens her jeans with one hand, the other still around her neck. He pushes into her without any warning. It hurts, she wants to push him off, and lets him do it anyway. She opens her eyes again, looks at his face, so strange and familiar at once. Without really wanting to she starts to kiss him, and just as she begins to like what he's doing to her he comes while growling her name.

They catch their breaths and when he lets go of her she grabs her phone. “Go, I call the cops,” she says, sounding defeated.

He opens his mouth to protest, but she already dialled the number. With one last strange look he leaves the room. She wipes down everything he might have touched, thoroughly.

-

Maybe it's because she got accustomed to not being alone in the last few weeks, or maybe him saying it reminded her of that she is indeed his' (at least after everything he made her do, at least since she saw him naked all those years ago and realized how much she loves him), because she stands in front of his door the next evening.

He smiles like the _old Dex_ did and for one moment she forgets everything that has happened.

“Aunt Deb!” Harrison shouts and runs into her arms, smiling like the happiest person in the world. And he probably is, aren't all small children happy, even the ones who's father killed a man the night before?

“I missed you,” she says, picking Harrison up, planting a kiss on his forehead, all the while looking at Dexter.

 _I missed you, too,_ his eyes seem to say.

-

She tries to get them both killed by driving his car into a lake. It's not like she planed on doing it, sure she thinks about killing herself ever since _fucking Rudy_ proposed to her, but never really wanted to go through with it. But then she's sitting in the car next to Dexter and he's smiling at her because she's _back with him (_ back with him killing people while she kills herself to protect him), and she just _knows_ she has to put an end to this.

Unfortunately she starts to panic as soon as the water raises above her lips and without exactly wanting to she gets out of the car and swims to the shore. And she is not just too weak to kill herself, but to kill her brother as well, because when she sees his still unconscious body disappear into the water she goes right back to save him.

For a few seconds he lies under her, not breathing and looking entirely dead, and it feels worse than anything she ever felt before, and she wishes she never got out of this car, died right next to him where she belongs. Then suddenly he starts coughing and she thanks whatever is up there for brining him back to her.

-

She expects him to drive her to her house, refuse to ever talk to her again, but he brings them straight back to his apartment after being released from the hospital. She reads stories to Harrison until he falls asleep on her lap and holds him a little bit longer, before taking him to bed, all the while thinking about how she nearly _lost_ this.

Dexter is already lying in bed when she comes out of Harrison's room. She lies down next to him and starts to whisper, “I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” hysterically all over again and he holds her down and kisses her like he never did before.

When she calmed down he starts to undress her, kisses her collarbones, breasts, stomach, thighs. She nearly starts to moan even before he eventually kisses her slit and then her clitoris. Even though he fucked her not one week ago after he killed Briggs if feels like an eternity since the last time he touched her. She moans and moans and he kisses, licks, and fingers her so long until she doesn't even remember how many times she came.

“Don't leave me again,” he whispers against her lips when he fucks her.

“I won't,” she says, and never felt so sure about something.

“You're mine,” he says when he comes.

-

She goes to AA-meetings. After three days of being completely sober she feels like shit, but Dexter smiles and says he's proud of her so flushes all the alcohol she got left down her kitchen sink. She doesn't talk at the meetings (because what is she supposed to say that doesn't put her into prison?), but listening to other people helps, even if it's only for the realization that her life is not as fucked up as it could be.

She sleeps more nights at Dexter's apartment than at her own house and Jaime, _Batista's fucking sister_ who Dexter still didn't fire, starts to look at her strangely when she meets her boss' half-naked sister in the kitchen every other morning. He probably has to fire her now so that she doesn't start questioning _where exactly_ Debra sleeps in the one-be-apartment. Then Jaime quits as she finds another job that will look better on her resume and they start to look for a replacement, one they certainly won't tell that they're siblings.

Sometimes she imagines what her life would be like if she never found out about Dexter's nightly activities. Sees them starting this slowly, maybe even going on dates, before having sex with each other. And it's nice and they like it, but don't want to answer all these weird questions their co-workers will surely have after a while, so they start over in another city, raise Harrison together, and are working in different departments, so that no one realizes their actually not sharing the same last name because they're married.

But even in this fairytale fantasy Dexter disappears for one night every few weeks to chop up some bad guy, and then she finds out anyway, and they are exactly where they are right now.

No matter what she imagines their life to be, it always ends in blood.

-

After Briggs' death it seemed like she'd never find the one he was working for, but she did some more digging and finally stumbled upon the organisation. It's worse then she thought it would be, they are involved in human-traffic, bring girls from Eastern-Europe to the US with the promise of honest work and money, just to let them get raped by anyone who pays for it. She wants to bring them down, but she isn't able to find evidence that links the leader of the organisation to the crimes.

“Let it go,” her boss says, “We go to the police with everything you found and they put some of the bastards into prison and those poor girls will be free.”

And it's not enough, and she tries to forget about it, but she just can't stop thinking about the man who's doing all of this without ever getting his deserved punishment.

“I want you to kill someone,” she whispers one night when Dexter's buried deep inside of her.

“What is his name?” She tells him and he only says, “okay.”

“You don't want to know _why_? I thought you only kill someone if you're certain they deserve it.” The picture of LaGuerta sitting in her own blood comes to her mind and she tries to forget about it.

“You wouldn't have asked me if he didn't deserve it.”

-

 _It's done_ , he texts her five hours after he left her place. She told him she wanted to know when he's doing it, when he's done with it. Again, he didn't ask why, and she paced up and down her living room, not knowing if she wanted to get through with it, until she made up her mind and drove to the marina.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, small plastic bags in his hands.

“I wanted to see it.” She doesn't know exactly what _it_ is. Maybe the body, maybe what Dexter is like right after he killed someone and doesn't have to take care of his hysterical sister.

He looks confused, but only shrugs.

She helps him getting the other bags on the boat and then they drive out onto the open ocean. It's weirdly peaceful, and she certainly didn't feel that way when they got rid of Jordan Chase's body.

When they finally stop Dexter looks at her, “You wanna do it?”

She hesitates for a few moments, then nods. The bags feel strangely heavier then just one hour before, and when she holds the first one over the water she thinks she won't be able to got through with this, but then she just opens her hand and it feels like a burden is lifted from her shoulders. 

The ride back is just as peaceful and she feels herself smiling all the while.

-

In the end it's Quinn who warns her. Maybe it's because his stupid heart is just too big to let her go down like this, or maybe he's really believing she didn't know anything about it all.

He comes to her house one evening, looking like shit and panic starts to creep up on her. “What happened,” she asks and tries to sound confused but still calm.

“It's-,” he shakes his head, “You've got anything to drink?”

“No, sorry, tossed everything out. Come on in.” They sit down on her couch and she remembers the last time he was here, how he washed and held her. Weirdly she doesn't feel ashamed.

“You seem to be better,” he states, looking around her still messy, but clean living room.

“Yeah,” she says and shrugs, “So what happened?”

He takes a deep breath like he doesn't know how to begin with what he has to say, then, “I started to date Jaime.”

She forces herself to laugh lowly, “Angel's surely delighted.”

He ignores her comment, “She... told me you stayed over every other night.”

Biting down on her lips she waits for him to continue, not wanting to risk telling him things he doesn't know about. Fuck, she knew Dexter should never have hired the girl.

“And she said that you looked... And I saw how bad you have been for the last few months,” he stares onto her right arm, she only now realizes that nothing is covering the hand-shaped bruise Dexter left there the night before, “Is he... is he doing things to you?”

Her mind starts racing. On the one hand it's understandable that Quinn doesn't think she's having sex with her brother voluntarily, on the other hand it seems like he has a _reason_ to believe Dexter is capable of doing something like this. “No,” she says firmly and shakes her head.

“Deb, you're safe,” he takes her hand into his, “We will protect you, nothing is going to happen to you any more.”

“I really appreciate it, but there is nothing I need protection from, especially not from Dexter,” she tries to sound as neutral as possible so that she doesn't reveal the fear that is starting to take hold of her.

“Is he forcing you to have sex with him?” Quinn asks, eyes hard.

She pulls her hand out off his grip, “This is ridiculous, he's my brother.”

“Please,” he says, suddenly looking devastated , “I know he's hurting you. Come with me to the station, report what he's doing to you. He-”

“This is crazy,” she interrupts him, sounding angry, “Dexter would _never_ do something like this.”

“Deb-”

“No, I'm grateful that you worry about me so much, but I want you to go now.”

He sighs lowly and defeated, staying right where he is for a few more seconds seemingly hoping she'd change her mind. “You can call me whenever you want to, you know that right?”

She only nods and waits until Quinn left her house and she hears his car driving away, before pulling her phone out of her pocket and texting, _they know_

-

Dexter comes by no thirty minutes later. She stuffed a few clothes and her gun into a bag like he told her to, and decides to take the photo album her dad gave her when she turned eighteen with her as well, having the bad feeling she will never come back.

Harrison is sleeping in the back-seat when she climbs into the car and Dexter is gritting his teeth and looks as bad as she feels. “What exactly did he tell you?”

They are out of Miami when she told him everything. After a stop in an empty street to change the license-plat and getting rid of their phones she asks, “He at least suspects something, doesn't he?”

Dexter nods, “And certainly not just him.”

“So what are we going to do now?” She feels the panic raising inside of her with the thought of loosing the little family she still got left.

“We go as far as we can,” he says.

-

They take turns and drive all through the night. In the morning they both call in sick, only ever stop at gas stations for toilet breaks and eating, and keep Harrison occupied with a tablet. They are already in the next State when she sees their face online in one of burner phones Dexter brought with him. “They are looking for us for killing a cop,” she sounds emotionless, probably feels like it as well.

“Does it say anything else?”

“No. No details, just that they want us in for questioning.”

“Okay, so they know about LaGuerta, it could be worse.”

“Could be worse? Fuck, how could this be any worse?”

“You said fuck!” Harrison states laughing.

“If they had evidence for anything else they wouldn't only look for us because of what happened to LaGuerta,” he says in a lower voice.

“Really?” she whispers back angrily, “You really think this? If the knew _who you are_ they won't admit it officially until they absolutely have to. They let Doaks go down for it and worked with you for years after, they _won't_ admit any of this until they absolutely have to!” she takes a shaking breath, “I don't understand how you can be that calm.”

“We have to get as far away as possible, we only know what they released to the press and not what they send to other police stations, so we don't know who and _what_ is after us. I need to be calm to get us out of this.”

“Fuck, Dex,” she says.

“I'm sorry,” he says and sounds almost honest.

Behind her Harrison laughs about something that is happening in the movie he's watching.

-

They drive for one more day straight until they are too exhausted and stay in a shitty motel. She cuts off their hair and they both look horrible, but it doesn't really matter, as long as they don't look too much like themselves.

Harrison falls asleep immediately after she laid down with him in one of the beds, and she keeps him in her arms a while longer, enjoying the feeling of his warm skin against her fingers. She plants kisses on his head and nearly starts crying with the fear of holding him like this for the last time.

After Dexter showered she crawls into his bed. He didn't put on any clothes and she's grateful for it. She touches and kisses him everywhere she can reach and he lets her do it. Normally he flips her over and starts to fuck her or eat her out whenever she tries to just touch his skin, but he probably sees how close she is to breaking apart _._

In the end she sits down on his cock and fucks him until she starts to sob. “Deb,” he whisper and tries to push her down.

“No,” she says angrily and claws her nails into his skin to draw blood. He hisses and comes a few seconds later.

She falls down next to him, still crying. He takes her into his arms, kissing her tenderly. “I never want this to end,” she whispers.

-

They plan on going to South America. Dexter is sure they get through the boarder to Mexico without any problems, but doesn't want to take the direct way for that the police probably expects it.

And everything works out, no one is stopping them, no one even looks at them twice, and she starts to hope they will make it to Mexico and then to where-ever-the-fuck no one is looking for them.

Everything works out just fine until it doesn't.

-

Over two weeks after they left Miami and three days before they want to cross the boarder they arrest her.

She is grocery shopping, Dexter and Harrison stayed behind in the motel to packed their freshly washed clothes, and someone probably recognizes her from the pictures that are still all over the news. She sees the cop enter the shop and doesn't even has time to get scared when another one puts a gun against the back of her head and tells her to raises her hands.

On the drive to the station she looks out of the window hoping to not see another police car joining theirs with Dexter in the back-seat.

They bring her into an empty interrogation room and she stays there alone for a few hours, scared shitless that they arrested Dexter as well.

It's probably evening when someone finally sits down across from her.

“Where is your brother, Debra?” he asks and she can't keep herself from smiling.

“I need to got to the toilet and want to talk to a lawyer.”

-

They bring her back to Florida and it feels rather pointless, but whatever. She is weirdly little invested in what will be happening to her. Every day they don't catch Dexter she is more certain they won't ever find him.

“It depends on you, Debra,” one of the cop says to her, “If you tell us where your brother is you go to prison for killing a cop, if you don't they will find out you were one yourself. You know what they do to cops in prison, don't you?”

She just keeps her mouth shut.

“Tell them where he is and they'll let you go,” her lawyer says.

“I don't know where he is,” she answer honestly.

She is in solitary in some small prison and above everything else it is boring. She tries to imagine Dexter and Harrison sitting on some nice beach, oblivious to her being in this windowless room. It's stupid that her greatest fear, after them getting caught, is that Dexter is glad he got rid of her. She misses them so much it hurts and she just wants them to miss her as much.

At least she knows how pathetic it sounds.

-

A judge orders her to be let go until the trial begins. She has to pay a security guaranty and isn't allowed to leave Miami but she doesn't know where else to go, so it doesn't matter.

“Your ex-partner testified he came to yours the night before you left, and that you told him you were scared of your brother. That Dexter raped you regularly. Is this true?” her lawyer tells her after the hearing.

She nods slowly.

“That's good. They don't have much against you, now we can prove you're the victim.”

She wants to argue that being raped definitely isn't _good_ , but keeps her mouth shut.

The guaranty is ridiculously low, which means the prosecution wants her out of prison, probably for her to be stupid enough to try to get to Dexter immediately and she maybe would have done it if she knew where to look for him.

Her house is a mess, everything searched through. She calls her lawyer and asks whether they found something suspicious at Dexter's apartment. Apparently they didn't, which makes her wonder how and when he god rid of all his murder-stuff. Did he take it with him? She hasn't seen anything in the car, but this doesn't mean it wasn't there.

She takes a long bath and wants to get drunk, thankfully she doesn't has anything in her house. It's pointless to stay sober, but she somehow wants to keep her act together.

-

A few days later she breaks down after all. Maybe she just now realized that she lost her whole fucking family. Dexter put her into this mess and now rides into the sunset leaving her behind to go down for him. He should have come back, tried to save her, but he just drove off when she didn't return back from the store. Fucking asshole, _fucking selfish asshole_. She sacrificed everything for him and _trying_ to save her was too much to ask?

She cries and screams and cries some more. Then she destroys every single plate she owns, imagining to throw them into his stupid face.

When she calmed down enough she drives to the next store, buys a few bottles of booze and gets blackout drunk.

-

At some point her lawyer informs her Dexter singed his apartments over to her a while ago. It's a nice touch because she doesn't have any money left so she sells them and reinvests the money in alcohol and drugs.

Astor and Cody try to contact her and she ignores it, not knowing how she could possibly explain it to them. She puts most of the money she made with the sell of the apartments into their bank accounts, though. 

Objectively, she knows she hit rock-bottom, but she doesn't have a reason to get her shit together so she wakes up, takes some pills, watches TV, gets drunk, and than back to bed all over again. She doesn't even know how many weeks passed by when her trial starts. Even though she is physically there she has no clue what is going on, her lawyer says she won't go to prison, but she can't decide whether it makes her happy or not.

The worst thing is that Batista is there every day and looks furious like she has never seen him before. It would probably make her sad if the pills didn't numb everything down. Maybe, if she was a little bit more sober, she'd go to him and tell him “sorry I killed your ex, wasn't anything personal, you know”.

In the end she only gets probation and has to spend a few months in some shitty rehab facility, and she can't believe she got away with all the shit she has done.

-

It's Quinn who picks her up when she's allowed to leave the rehab. She hadn't thought she'd ever see him again, but he's seems to be even more self-destructive than her.

“Why did you lie for me?” she finally asks when he stops in front of her house.

“I didn't,” he says and she wonders if he really believes it.

-

She quitted on drinking once again, but still swallows a variety of pills every morning, only that this time she got a prescription. After she is back at home she locks herself in for a few days and starts to think about what she's going to do now. She could go somewhere else, start over, work as a private detective again, and maybe it would make her finally feel _good_.

At night she still wakes up to pictures of dead bodies and to Dexter asking her whether she wants to finish off the next one. Sometimes she dreams of LaGuerta and the guy she got killed and who's body-parts she threw into the ocean herself. But the worst dreams are the ones in which Dexter comes back to her: he just stands in her door-frame, Harrison in his arms, saying “I love you,” all over again. She wakes up and is positive he lies next to her every time. It hurts like hell. 

She doesn't know whether she's still watched or if she's only paranoid, but she feels eyes on her where-ever she goes. And after nearly three months of cooking healthy meals, doing sports and not knowing what do to with herself she finally decides to go to the address Dexter gave her all this time ago.

She is overly cautious to lose every potential pursuer, and after a two hours drive she stands in front of a storage-room-facility. Unsurprisingly there is no video surveillance, but she still parks her car a few blocks away and hides her face under a peaked cap. The key (which she _hid_ in the key box with all the other not so often used ones) feels heavy in her hand when she climbs the stairs to the room Dexter had written down. It's small with only a bag inside, and when she opens it she see money, a passport with a fake name and her picture on it, and a map of a small city in Argentina.

-

She opens up a account at some dubious bank under the fake name, and puts a big sum of cash into it. Then she waits a few weeks.

The possibility of seeing them again makes her heart skip a beat, but she can't stop thinking about how there will be no turning back once she goes there. She isn't allowed to leave the country, let alone the State, and what is she supposed to do if they aren't in the town Dexter picked for whatever reason years ago? And what is going to happen if she _finds them_ there? The thought of being back with her brother makes her weirdly anxious.

After buying a bottle of vodka and nearly drinking it, before flushing it down the toilet, she decides she can't keep going on like this.

She goes shopping for clothes, packs them into her old suitcase and checks into a nice hotel. She stays there a few days, meets a clearly married guy who is on a business-trip and fucks him just because she can. After a week or so she dyes her hair blonde, and puts on an expensive pant-suit and red high heels. Then she packs some of the clothes and her papers into a small bag, and leaves the hotel through the main entrance together with people who are dressed similarly to her. She shares a cab with another woman who _coincidentally_ wants to go to the airport as well.

She buys a ticket for the flight to Argentina that is parting in two hours and only dares to really breath again when she got through the passport control.

In Buenos Aires she gets all the money she put into the new bank account, buys some old car and starts to drive.

-

Two days later she reaches the small town and has no idea how she's supposed to find them, let alone what she'll do if she doesn't. She rents the first flat she can find and gets a job in one of the local restaurants even though she only speaking a few words Spanish.

She spends the days strolling through the streets, hoping to just run into them, and the nights running from table to table, learning various new swearwords.

After three weeks the bad feeling of being in the wrong place sinks in and it makes her panic whenever she's lying alone in her bed. And when she nearly starts to think about where else he could have gone to she runs into Dexter in a grocery store of all places.

He looks different, his hair longer and he's sporting a long, red beard, which looks so hideous that she starts to laugh without really wanting to. At first he doesn't seem to realize what is going on, then he starts to smile, or at least she guesses he's smiling, his lips aren't really visible under his _fucking beard._

He takes her into his arms, “I thought you wouldn't come.”

“Me neither” she admits and hugs him right back.

Out of the corner of her eyes she sees a cop entering the store. She freezes.

-

_Sometimes she thinks about what she would change if she could go back in time. The obvious answer is to stop Harry from ever setting a foot into that container, but considering what has become of Rudy, even without someone showing him how to kill people, they'd probably end up the same way._

_So maybe she should save their mother from getting chopped up in front of them all together, but the more she thinks about it, the more she gets convinced that there was something else, something_ rotten, _inside of all of them - Dexter, Rudy, Harry and herself - that made them do these horrible things._

_And no matter what Harry had done when he entered that container, and no matter where the little boys had been the day their mother got killed, she knows it would have ended in blood all the same._

**Author's Note:**

> If I'm honest I wanted the show to end with Dexter dying or at least going to prison, but I didn't want to write it myself, so whatever. Congrats if you made through!


End file.
